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Hm... everything looks like it is floating to me. The mountains, forests, etc, look detached from the land. Perhaps throwing in a drop shadow... or feather the edges and multiple it with the texture of the land?

The shoreline, roads and cities look good though. Knowing you, this is no doubt going to transform nicely over the next few iterations I'm sure.

Bill Stickers is innocent! It isn't Bill's fault that he was hanging out in the wrong place.Please make an effort to tag all threads. This will greatly enhance the usability of the forums.

Fixed the floating...

RP - I fixed the floating objects: I gave them a 5 pixel feathering, added a "glow" shadow and applied a 20% transparency. The forests got "stain-glass" transparency filter - same thing as multiply layers.

Added a hex grid - since my WW1 map, this is the first using the same technique, hex grid with a 50% transparency applied to show objects beneath and to make it more subtle, less obstructive.

I am pretty much done with this map, I am working on the second map now.

Much improved. Will there be a legend that defines what the different mountains/hills/other are? I'm still not keen on what I assume are mountains and hills as they are a bit too "blobby" if that makes sense, but I'm hard pressed to think of a better way to do them.

Check that. What if you colored the "land layer" in those areas with the colors you are using and then used a displacement to make them "pop" up? That would give you a better transition of color into those areas and still give you the shading that would provide height.

Bill Stickers is innocent! It isn't Bill's fault that he was hanging out in the wrong place.Please make an effort to tag all threads. This will greatly enhance the usability of the forums.

I've got some limitations

Originally Posted by RPMiller

Much improved. Will there be a legend that defines what the different mountains/hills/other are? I'm still not keen on what I assume are mountains and hills as they are a bit too "blobby" if that makes sense, but I'm hard pressed to think of a better way to do them.

Check that. What if you colored the "land layer" in those areas with the colors you are using and then used a displacement to make them "pop" up? That would give you a better transition of color into those areas and still give you the shading that would provide height.

That displacement idea sounds like something to try to improve the maps!

I am sort of limited to the size of the mountains/hills and their locations based on the original crudely hand-drawn versions of these maps.

I participated in a "Build a City" thread at the CBG, a month or so ago, and LordVreeg fell in love with this style of mountains I created for maps for that thread - so I was hinted in doing that style. Because the mountains are so small or because mountains cover so little of the total map - I found it alittle difficult to work with, hence these little problems. Let me try the displacement technique you mention, RP, and see if I can improve them any.